The Sky Below
by commander in blue
Summary: For the epic challenge: An A-Z relationship that was, but not quite. -"What's your problem?" "You."- Zach/Macey, minor Zach/Cammie. One shot.


**assumptions.**

From the minute you see her, away from your friends and from her friends on your first official day of the Gallagher Academy, you made an assumption about her.

She's all legs and black hair and blue eyes—and you can't take yours off of her. Radiating superiority, classic old money grace, and with a very bored visage, you assume that she is nothing more than the type of spoiled girls the Gallagher Academy uses as a cover.

And she is. But not quite.

---

**between.**

One day, while you follow Cammie Morgan around the school (despite having memorized the building's layout the first time), she runs into you both. Not running, perhaps, but _colliding_.

She doesn't even glance in your direction as she says, "Sorry, Cam. In a bit of a rush." With that, she doesn't go around the two of you or even wait for you both to pass her in the narrow hallways.

Instead, she bursts in between the two of you and glides off into her own direction. Vaguely, you realize how close you were actually standing next to Cammie. But mostly, you realize that the girl who collides and runs is very, very far away.

---

**challenge.**

Out of all that happened the first night of the Gallagher Academy, you remember three words the best, even with the impressive memory.

"I've seen cuter," she had said with a lofty shrug and continued doing some homework like she had better things to do with her time. You remember the looks of disagreement from her friends (flattering), the stern expression Madame Dabney had given her for saying something so forward (terrifying), and the way she said it so casually and so honestly (surprising).

From day one, she had been a challenge.

---

**dancing.**

The first time you see her smile, you're in shock.

While she's dancing with your best friend (and you want to punch him hard for beating you to it), she looks ecstatic. Gone was the haughty expression she had most likely perfected over time. He dips her, she laughs. He twirls her, she glows. She is a flash of color on the dance floor, and when you think about it, she's really taken to her new cover. Somebody warmer, more fun.

At that moment, you want nothing more than to be the person to melt the ice queen.

---

**egos.**

The first thing you actually say to her is sort of an insult.

There she was, strolling into class with her sunglasses on and gum popping at a rapid rate. While the other girls had made an effort to look their best everyday now (and you really hadn't noticed), she walks in with her hair in a messy ponytail and free of any makeup.

The guys stare at her like she's just this huge mystery that their MENSA certifications hadn't prepared them for. The girls (excluding her friends) sulk in what can only be described as pure envy.

And what kills you, what _really _gets to you is the ego. The way she seems so sure of herself. The way she seems so sure of what she thinks of everyone else.

So without thinking, you blurt out, "Do you really think you look that good?" In an instant, the buzz of the room is reduced to silence. For a split second, you want to take it back because she's still a _girl _and being a gentleman was an unofficial class at Blackthorne. But then you remember that if she's really who you think she is, she'll shrug it off.

Plus, you don't ever apologize to people and mean it.

Like you expected, she doesn't skip a beat. Doesn't bat an eyelash. Doesn't falter, doesn't fumble. "I don't think so," she replies with a tiny smirk as she slides off her sunglasses, "I _know _so."

And, she takes the seat next to Bex Baxter without saying another word to you because you both know she's said enough.

---

**fluorescent.**

When she slid off her sunglasses, you noted, her eyes were not just blue. They were electric blue. Mediterranean blue. They were fluorescent, eyes wider and more brilliant than you thought.

They were like her own secret weapon.

---

**grasp.**

You'll admit it, with all the attention you've been getting at this school, you've sort of turned arrogant. While girls aren't exactly throwing themselves at you, they're not subtle at all about their feelings about you.

You're not even sure that _she _has any feeling for you. You can't blame her, not when you're spending hours teasing her best friend (and hoping she'll catch you having fun and be intrigued), helping Liz develop some theorems on cracking codes (and wishing that she'll admire your talents), and teaching Bex the finer points of jujitsu (and praying she'll think to ask you for help in P&E)

But, no. She gives a half smile at Cammie when she sees you together, makes a light joke at Liz's expense, and reminds Bex that they should start running together in the morning again.

No comments directed to you at all.

She continually slips out of your grasp, even though you never really had her to begin with.

---

**humbling.**

"So, Jonas and Liz, Bex and Grant, you and..." You simply grin at Cammie in the dim lighting of the library, hoping she'll confuse the trailing off with your patented sense of humor. She smiles a bit, but not that much. It's almost like she knows the question that you asked next.

"What about Macey?" _Macey. _Saying her name out loud was odd, like it was a password. _A password to what_, you wondered.

Cammie shook her head. "Relationships aren't really her thing. She said she's not very interested in any guy here. Not her type." Her tone is vacant and words are like a punch to the stomach. Just when you thought that you had an "in" with that enigmatic girl, she shuts you off. Closes up.

"And what is her type?" you can't help but ask.

Cammie shrugs. "I don't know. Not anyone here, I suppose."

Instead of feeling discouraged, you say nothing and return to your essay for Countries of the World, mulling each of her words over.

You are going to prove Macey McHenry wrong.

---

**introductions.**

You're forced to work with her in an impromptu encryption lesson. She sighs softly and moves to the empty chair next you. You simply want to high-five Mr. Mosckowitz.

"I'm Macey," she introduces herself quietly, despite Blackthorne having been at her school for a month now and sharing quite a few classes with Zach. As if she wasn't the only female at the school not giving him the time of day. As if she wasn't one of the things that kept him up all night.

"Zach," you reply, offering her a handshake to which she coldly rebuffs.

---

**justification.**

She's not as oblivious as you thought.

In fact, as you go out of your way to talk to Jonas, who is holding hands with Liz, who is chatting with Macey about the advantages of changing the chemical base of a moisturizer—she waits until the happy couple leaves to chew you out.

"What the hell is your problem?" she snaps, pulling you a corner of the corridors with more force than you expected.

"What?" Playing innocent was one of your specialties.

"You stare at me all the time, you hang around with my friends twenty-four seven—"

"Jonas is my friend, last time I checked," you protest, but are mostly in disbelief over the fact that she's caught on.

"—you're asking Cammie about my love life, what's your deal?" she huffs, hip cocked and arms folded in a way that is both striking and frightening. "_What's your problem_?"

You could have given her tons of reasons why you were acting this way towards her, some truths, mostly lies. You could have rolled your eyes and made a smart comment. You could have confessed that while you're not exactly sure you know how you feel about her, you want the chance to find out. You just want to know her.

But instead, you stare her dead in the eye and say, "You."

And then do what she's so good at—walk away.

---

**kiss.**

You don't even think about her for two days, three hours, and fifteen minutes.

She's there in the school, of course, but not to you. She blends in now almost as well as Cammie, only because you don't _want _to see her. Challenges are lovely, but the impossible kind like Macey McHenry. The kind that you're so wrapped up in and you don't even know why.

Wordlessly, on the sixteenth minute of the third hour of the second day, she pulls you to a secluded corner once more. Except she's not pulling you in, you're just following her because it's so hard not to. CoveOps has just ended, and groups of your peers catch you two together and laugh to themselves.

"_McHenry and Goode, I should have seen it coming_," somebody says a bit too loudly.

She whips around fast to face the culprit. "Oh, shut the hell up and go bother somebody else, would you?" They oblige without a word, because she's Macey McHenry and once again, it's just hard not to.

The second you two are fully alone, she looks hesitant, like she's only considered her plan up to this moment. Finally, _you_ murmur, "Spare me the crap and tell me the real reason why you dragged me here." You almost have to bite your tongue from saying "_and don't say it's because of my good looks" _in an effort to make her laugh. That laugh is the last thing you want to here.

Within a second, she closes the gap between the both of you and presses her lips to yours so fast that it almost didn't register that you were kissing her. While it wasn't the most passionate sort of kiss you've ever had, it's surprising to say the least.

"For that."

---

**likeness.**

It turns out, Macey McHenry loves a challenge almost as much as you do.

---

**mysterious.**

Your relationship with her is a whirl of elaborate meetings in secret and mysterious glances. Hands holding hands in dark rooms, faces so close you can literally take her breath away in private gardens, and the occasional smirk that you both wear so proudly.

But mostly, it's hours spent talking in any place where you can get away from the rest of the world.

Until you find other uses for your lips, of course.

---

**nearness.**

Neither of you want to go public with this _thing _you have with each other. For her, she doesn't want to be the center of any more drama or gossip. For you, it's because you also want people to mind their own business and it's exciting to take part in such a clandestine liaison.

Except for when you see her in public and you're not supposed to talk to her unless absolutely necessary. Look at her. Hear her laugh. Just be near her.

---

**open.**

"What are we, exactly?" she blurts out. The two of you are on the roof of the building with your legs dangling off into the sky below. It was, by definition, mildly risky, which only made it relaxing for two spies in training.

You don't know how to answer that. In the month you two have been meeting in secret, it's just never been discussed, never been an issue. _Friends_ was too casual, _a couple_ was too serious, _friends with benefits _was too crude. You two were just _open for interpretation._

So, you do what _you _do best and avoid a rational answer all together. "I thought we were Zach Goode and Macey McHenry," you reply with a grin.

She tilts her head back and snickers like it's the best joke she's ever heard.

---

**promises.**

"Does it ever bother you that we've been like this for about a month and half now and nobody knows?"

"No."

"Promise?"

"I swear it doesn't bother _me_."

---

**questions.**

Something's changed in her, you can tell right off the bat. She's spending more time with her friends and actually looks invested in the conversation. She only halfheartedly replies your notes without any of her quick wit. And when you're together, her eyes are feverish and her hands shake and she's lost the so much of the ego that drew you to her in the first place.

She's questioning something. Or someone.

---

**resolutions.**

The next secret meeting you have with her ends your, now two month, relationship.

"We can't keep doing this," she says numbly. You had been waiting for her on the roof again and she kept you waiting for about thirty minutes. She's a lot of things, but punctual is at the top of the list.

Her words are clear, but her voice is shaking a little. "It's not you, it's—"

"Don't use that excuse on me. Please." Your own voice lacks any emotion. Anybody could see where this was going.

In spite of everything, she chuckles. "I wasn't going to say that. It's pretty overplayed, don't you think?" You don't reply.

"It's not me, either. It's..." she exhales, "it's Cammie. She's really hung up over you and I-I can't just keep listening to her talk and _gush _about you while we're—" She waved her hand around. "While we're like _this._"

Truth be told, you had suspected that Cammie had some feelings for you, but you were thinking too much about Macey to even consider how this was affecting their friendship. Maybe the same went for her. "I get it," you say simply, "she's your friend and—"

"She's not just my friend," she corrects with a touch of plea, "Cam, Bex, and Liz are like my family. And I can't do this to family."

For a while, you both just sit and absorb everything. Neither of you want to state that yes, this _was _a big deal and lose the cool exteriors you have spent ages building up. Neither of you wanted to say what really mattered.

"Can I be completely cheesy and ask if we can still be friends?" she asks, but it's more a statement. In a split second, she's back to her old tricks: sparkling eyes and smiles, which shine a little less now that you know what goes on in her head.

But, you play along. For now. "Of course."

---

**settling.**

Three weeks later, and you're with Cammie and she's with Preston Winters. And both of you are public with your new relationships.

Part of you is happy you got together with Cammie because she's everything Macey wasn't: calm, honest, shy in an adorable sort of way, and most of all, has only one real cover—herself.

Part of you is confused why she's with Preston, who is everything _you're _not: worships the ground she walks on, clever in a nerdy sort of way, awkwardly funny, and is completely himself in every way possible.

Part of you thinks you're both just settling for opposites because you were too alike to begin with.

---

**truth.**

Sometimes, the truth is sort of painful.

And the truth is that despite what you want to think, Cammie's eyes aren't as _fluorescent _as her's were.

---

**understanding.**

"I don't know, Zach," Cammie says one day as you two are curled up in the courtyard outside under a tree. She originally had wanted to go on the roof, but you adamantly refused out of the memories. "You don't even talk to Macey, you just ignore her. I talk to _your _friends." She sighs and rests her head on your shoulder. "Why can't we all be one big group."

You lost her at _"you don't even talk to Macey_." You could give her all the false assurances in the world, but Cammie Morgan would never really understand why you don't—and _can't_—talk to her.

---

**verify.**

Your relationship with Cammie, you realize, verifies _so_ much. Like how you can be a good boyfriend. Like how you actually know how to console a crying girl, a _spy _girl.

But most of all, it verifies what you could never have with Macey: honesty. Not honesty with each other, but with everybody else. Because nothing feels better than throwing your arms around Cammie in public or being _near _her or just saying "_this is my girlfriend_."

The only thing you couldn't have with Cammie that you could have with Macey was excitement. Excitement in everything, she had a lust for life that was almost contagious.

---

**wanted.**

Eventually, she and Preston broke up.

"He lacked certain qualities," she'd explain, as you and Cammie and your respective best friends sat around to listen to her. If getting boyfriends were the new vogue, then she was about to start a new trend by declaring herself _single by choice_. "He wasn't what I wanted."

"What kind of differences?" Grant asks quizzically.

"Well," she began, "like the ability to have an opinion on anything, for one." Everybody burst out laughing at that sentiment, even you. For a moment, you could swear that her eyes met yours as she said it, silently acknowledging your short lived romance for a split second.

Nobody else noticed it.

---

**x-ray.**

She's always been able to see through anybody with a mental x-ray, you included. She saw through you once you announced to Grant and Jonas that you and Cammie decided to mutually break up. She saw through you when you pretended to admit that it bothered you that she and Josh Abrams had gotten together almost immediately after.

Most of all, she saw through you when you said you wanted to take a walk alone, and waited five minutes before promptly doing the same.

---

**youth.**

She found you on the roof.

"Hey," she greets, sitting down next to you without a second thought. "Thought you needed some company of the female persuasion."

You smirk. "That's my favorite kind."

She lightly punches you on the arm. "Don't be such a skeeve." The two of you laugh at an old joke like the old friends you should be, yet more silence follows. Not at an awkward silence, the comfortable kind like neither of you feel obligated.

Until she does. "Are you upset about Cammie?" she asks cautiously.

You exhale. "No," you begin truthfully and slowly, "Josh is more her type. And he makes her happy, who am I to stand in their way?" Funny, how those words would have been more useful about three months ago.

"Spoken like a true gentleman."

"It's easier said than done, I assure you."

More silence. This time, there's something in the air muffling your voices. The words are all there, but for once, none of you are brave enough to say it.

"What about us?" she whispers and if there had been even been the tiniest gust of wind, you wouldn't have heard her.

What you _want _to say is _"we should just ditch the dramatics and get together, for pete's sake." _What your lips say is nothing more than, "We're young. We've got time." And it's true, you have all the time in the world and nothing standing in your way.

And for now, she just smiles and accepts that answer.

---

**zeal.**

Now, when you look back on all of your assumptions on Macey McHenry, you want to laugh. Hard.

At first, she was a challenge and enigma. Then, she was your _something _without a definition. After that, she was your girlfriend's best friend and a stranger.

Now, she's just Macey and you're just Zach. Your zeal for her has grown, flourished, died down, then grew into another stage that the two of you can't seem to define. You can talk to her in front of everyone without any inhibitions. You can go up to the roof with her and not expect anything major to happen. You can smile at her and have her smile back and just be _real _for once.

Because you two are. But not quite.

* * *

**an; not much of an author's note here except i didn't expect this to be this long and i sortakinda wanted to make the ending more conclusive, but i like the ambiguous thing. and their whole 'relationship' is pretty ambiguous and probably doesn't make sense and sucks xD  
**

**anywhoo, i hope you all like it :D; be sure to tell me what you think with a review.**

**-- asha (:**

**ps: i was _thisclose _to naming this "fluorescent adolescent", you don't even know.  
**


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